This invention relates to an offering plate for gathering a donation at a religious service; and, more particularly, it relates to an offering plate that gathers a credit card donation, a debit card donation, a cash donation, and an envelope donation, and accepts, stores, and displays information regarding the donation.
As is well known, a religious leader is typically assisted in the gathering of a donation and a member of a religious organization in the making of a donation at a religious service through the use of an offering plate.
Older versions of offering plates include woven baskets and plates made of ceramic, precious metal, such as silver, gold or platinum, wood, or other material appropriate to construct a container into which an donation can be deposited. Offering plates made of woven baskets are often referred to as collection baskets.
An offering plate is brought to a member during a religious service by an usher or circulated among members of a congregation. A member of the congregation then drops a donation onto the offering plate. A donation is most often in the form of cash or check. Frequently, donations contained within an offering plate are then deposited into a larger donation container. The larger container is then taken from the religious service for off-site processing. Off-site processing includes tallying individual donations, and crediting an individual donation to the account of a particular member of the congregation for tax purposes or for determining if the member is meeting a personal donation quota or a donation quota for the congregation. A donation quota is generally required if a member has a child attending a school affiliated with the religious organization, a financial pledge to the organization, or the like, and consists of a minimum donation amount during a specified period. This type of oblation is herein called "manual, post-processed cash oblation."
A major problem of manual, post-processed cash oblation exists if the member only has with him a bill that is smaller than the bill the member prefers to donate. The member may choose to donate the smaller bill, i.e. one dollar, even though the member's preference would have been to donate a larger bill, i.e. a five, ten or twenty dollar bill. Consequently, the religious organization loses the difference between the preferred donation and the donation actually made.
A second problem exists if the member has a bill larger than he prefers to donate, i.e. a one hundred dollar bill. The member may choose not to donate the larger bill since his preference would have been to donate a smaller bill, i.e. a five, ten, or twenty dollar bill. There is virtually no convenient way for a member to get change for a larger bill during a religious service.
A third problem is that a member, and at times his entire family, finds himself searching for a bill that is his donation preference prior to a religious service. Many times the member does not find the bill he wishes to donate. In one scenario, the member may choose to donate a bill that is larger than his donation preference. However, more often than not, the member may choose to donate a bill that is smaller than his bill of choice. The religious organization again looses the difference between the preferred donation and the donation actually made.
Regardless of whether the bill is larger or smaller than the bill the member prefers to donate, a secondary shortcoming of manual, post-processed cash oblation is that a member's account cannot be credited properly since there is no way to associate a particular cash donation with the member who made it. The member may choose not to donate either the larger or smaller bill since the donation does not carry a tax benefit or help satisfy his donation quota. Consequently, there exists a need for an offering plate that accommodates a member's donation preference, allows the member to obtain a tax benefit, and properly credits a member's account so that the member can meet a donation quota.
A newer version of manual, post-processed cash oblation has been developed that utilizes a donation envelope into which a cash or check donation is deposited. The donation envelope is generally a paper envelope that contains printed material including a member code, a space for marking the amount of the donation, and the date of the service attended. These features of the envelope allow for the member's account to be properly credited. This type of oblation is herein called "envelope assisted manual, post-processed cash oblation."
A shortcoming of envelope assisted, manual, post-processed cash oblation occurs if a member forgets to bring his donation envelope with him to a service. If the member forgets to bring his donation envelope and instead donates cash, his account, as previously discussed, cannot be properly credited. Moreover, even if envelope assisted manual, post-processed cash oblation is utilized, a shortcoming of this type of oblation is that crediting the donation to a member's account is labor intensive. The religious organization must manually process each envelope to properly credit the particular member's account. This processing generally includes a clerical staff member or group of volunteers who must open each envelope to determine the size of the cash donation within the envelope, and/or record the information located on the cover of the envelope, to properly credit the donation to an account of a member. If the congregation contains several thousand members, this form of oblation might involve several days of processing. Hence, there exists a need for an offering plate that automatically credits a member's account.
A serious problem with both manual, post-processed cash oblation and envelope assisted manual, post-processed cash oblation occurs if a member has with him no cash but has either a debit card or credit card. In this scenario, the member is foreclosed from contributing a donation since an offering plate cannot accept a debit card donation or credit card donation. Hence, there exists a need for an offering plate that allows a member to make a debit card donation or credit card donation and thereby increases the number of donations received by a religious organization by accepting debit card or credit card donations rather than simply cash or check donations.
As is well known, a further problem with manual, post-processed cash oblation and envelope assisted manual, post-processed cash oblation is that it requires manual off-site tallying of individual donations. As such there is a need for an offering plate that tallies an individual member's donations and a plurality of donations made by different members.
Moreover, another shortcoming of both types of oblation is that there is no offering plate system that can collect, analyze, and display statistical information associated with an individual donation or a tally of individual donations. Various types of statistical information can be associated with a donation. By way of example, one measure of the effectiveness of a particular sermon or the performance of a particular minister might be the amount of donations generated at a service. By way of further example, the particular donation habits of a member or group of members might be an indicator of the particular member, sub-group, or group of members a religious organization must target in order to maximize donations.
A current method of collecting, analyzing, and displaying this type of statistical information has a variety of shortcomings including a need to process information. This method is referred to herein as "manually obtaining statistical information." More particularly, manually obtaining statistical information requires recording information obtained from envelope assisted manual, post-processed cash oblation into a ledger or database, and then processing it. As such, few, if any, religious organizations undertake the added effort needed to compile this type of statistical data into useful form.
Rather than being based on statistical data, a judgment, i.e. whether to discontinue or add a service or sermon, is made based on qualitative factors. These qualitative factors include a rough approximation of the total amount of donations generated at a particular service, number of attenders, and the like. Consequently, there exists a need for an offering plate and offering plate system that collects, analyzes, and displays statistical information associated with an individual donation or a tally of individual donations and provides useful quantitative data on which a judgement can be based.
Issuance of credit and debit cards has exploded during the past decade. In 1982, there were an estimated 127.7 million credit cards issued in the United States, and an estimated 189.1 million credit cards issued worldwide. In 1991, there were an estimated 299 million credit cards issued in the United States, and an estimated 530.6 million cards issued worldwide. Source: Credit Industry 1993 Directory.
Concurrent with the increase in the number of cards issued has been an increase in global charge and transaction volume which has been even more dramatic: In 1982, there was a total of 131.9 billion dollars charged; in 1991, there was a total of 725.4 billion dollars charged. Annual Automatic Teller Machine ("ATM") volume has been increasing yearly up from a level of 2.4 billion transactions in 1983 to a level of 7.3 billion transactions in 1992. Furthermore, annual Point of Sale ("POS") volume has increased from 14.4 million transactions in 1985 to over 245.5 million transactions in 1992. Source: Credit Industry 1993 Directory. All of the trends indicate that consumers are preferring to use credit and debit cards.
It would be highly desirable to solve the variety of problems enumerated above facing members of the clergy, and members of religious organizations in gathering a cash donation, an envelope containing a cash donation, a credit card donation, and a debit card donation through the use of an offering plate and offering plate system which accommodates a variety of donation preferences, and collects, stores, analyzes, and displays information regarding a donation.
The present invention targets cardholders who currently possess upwards of 299 million credit cards issued in the United States, and cardholders who possess an estimated 530.6 million cards issued worldwide who are members of religious organizations. Moreover, the present invention contemplates a market that covers 120 million plus members of religious organizations in the United States, (Source: Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 1992 Edition), hundreds of millions of members worldwide, and well over 380,000 religious organizations in the United States and Canada, and an even more substantial number of religious organizations worldwide.
The present invention serves this market by providing an offering plate and offering plate system that offers convenience of use and ease of operation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will accept a cash donation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will associate a cash donation with an account of a member of a religious organization and credit that member's account accordingly.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will accept an envelope containing a cash donation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will automatically credit a donation within an envelope containing a cash donation to a member's account.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will accommodate a member's donation preference and thereby increase the number of donations received by a religious organization.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will accept a credit card donation and debit card donation and thereby increase the number of donations received by a religious organization.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an offering plate which will tally cash donations, cash donations contained within an envelope, credit card donations, and debit card donations.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an offering plate and offering plate system that can collect, analyze, and display statistical information associated with an individual donation or a plurality of individual donations and provide useful quantitative data. It is believed that the present invention will facilitate both free will offerings and tithes.